Why are companies allowed to hire interns and not pay them.

Hollister11

My college advertises intern positions for 3rd year students, some of these do be very decent sized companies who do not pay the interns. While 80% get some sort of wage, a couple don't even cover expenses.

One company wanted a IT Support intern to work Monday to Friday 9 - 5:30, no wage, no expenses, and in a computer science course, this will be of no benefit.

Xterminator

Hi OP

if you are in a position to be able to take an unpaid internship it can be to your advantage. if you living at home and going to college, a summer internship will look great on the CV.

Each grad /student has to go out and compete with others for the vacancies that are available. And if you have 2 otherwise equal candidates with the same qualifications, and one has done a summer internship in a real work environment, and one has not; i would lean heavily towards the one who knows what its like to work in a business as they know exactly what they are letting themselves in for.

from the prents perspective they have to support the college student anyway, and its a small investment in their future.

Now in the real world i worry that some companies will use this as slave labour, and replace a paid role with interns. But the pros and cons still apply and to the right person the internship does have value.

Sleepy

As an intern (particularly during a college placement) you will generate little or no value to the company, in fact, given the time that will have to be spent mentoring you by more experienced staff, you may actually be a drain on resources.

That you can't see the value of an IT Support internship to a computer science grad, says more about you than the company tbh. Very few grads are hired straight into dev roles, most will have to cut their teeth in support or testing roles for a few years.

The company I work with take in a couple of grads every year, and we pay them, but it's a recruitment strategy for us rather than because the interns generate any business value. We accept that we're paying them for nothing for 6 months in the understanding that having invested 6 months training in them, they'll usually be worth offering employment to on completion of their studies.

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scamalert

Actually i did 3months intern job for x company ,now there was 0 pay and did hours like rest of people,even thou place would be at the top of chain where money isn't concern.

First reason why i choose to do it,i was unemployed thus getting in routine 9-5 is better then sitting at home.

Now since position was for the field i was learning in college it was real life scenario - you do all work like rest of people in the office,but added benefit is you get trained as well,so whatever questions,issues i would of had there's always someone to help out.

Last reason would be references,and experience gained -since your doing intern work you can flex your hours way it suits you,or if needing time off,mistakes aren't critical, where if you were hired to work and messed up,or had lack of knowledge it would be different story.

Since when you say high paying companies them companies if you looked at requirements for getting hired would be looking for someone experienced 3-5yrs,numerous skills,interviews etc ,thus someone from college would have slim chance of landing any position within said company.

Thus while its not fair to not get paid,but if right company one could make new contacts,get experience references and real life skills for jobs with similar companies in the future.

LirW

While I totally do understand the purpose of Internships, I've seen some absolutely horrible positions in fields where the competition is generally high.
In lots of Art degrees, internships are incredibly demanding and unpaid. It really depends on what you're doing and how many hours. In my last job I had to deal with lots of quite well known architects and all of them had interns working up to 50 hours a week for zero pay and were very demanding in what to do, basically just because the name would always put a CV in a good light. One of them even took money from interns that they are allowed to work for them and I think this is utter madness.
But since the field is so highly competitive, they have no problems whatsoever finding people for internships.

When I attended university I simply never had the money to do an unpaid internship, was living on my own and had my bills to pay.
I always worked part time for the same company though for a few years in quite a niche field but I really loved that job.

Yes, internships can be very helpful on a CV, but it really depends on the field. I've met people with internships on their CVs having no clue about their own field.

So I'm a bit reserved when it comes to it, I do think it's never going to be a bad thing to have but it doesn't say much about the person since some people simply "can't afford" to do an internship.

donkey_kong

I find the problem with unpaid internships legally is that we haven't decided whether to treat them as a form of education or a form of employment.

If its a form of education then it must be accessible. No point subsidising tuition fees and distributing student grants if all these graduates are still unable to get their start in white-collar industries because they can't afford to work an unpaid internship that is increasingly the only way to get started.

If its a form of employment then it must be compensated, even if its only something comparable to an apprenticeship scheme.

There are plenty of good internship providers. I was lucky to benefit from interning. But without tougher regulations we're relying on the goodwill of employers not to exploit desperate young people and create a job market where those without parental support can't get a start in white collar industries.